Gabrielle Alina Eugenia Maria Petit was born on February 20, 1893, to working-class parents in Tournai, Hainaut. She was living in Brussels as a saleswoman when the First World War broke out, and immediately volunteered to serve with the Belgian Red Cross. In 1914, Petit helped her wounded fiancé cross the border into the neutral Netherlands to reunite with his regiment, and in the process passed some valuable information about the Imperial German Army along to the British. Seeing her potential as a secret agent, MI1 (which would later develop into…
